In communication networks, such as telecommunication networks, a set or pool of resources often need to be shared by several processing units, but cannot necessarily always be partitioned. In this case, a reservation mechanism needs to be set so that the resources are allocated appropriately while avoiding conflicts or underutilization of resources.
In the context of call control for instance, a call often involves, on the one hand, a control plane or signalling plane and, on the other hand, a user plane. The control plane or signalling plane is in charge of establishing and managing a connection between two points on the network. The user plane is in charge of transporting the user data. The resources may for instance be call legs, segments, trunks or slots in the user plane. For instance, media gateways, in charge of switching user data packets in the user plane, may be controlled by call control nodes in the control or signalling plane. The call control nodes are in charge of selecting the media gateway for the call. The call control nodes may be called switching center servers.
There is a constant need to provide network nodes and methods which solve or partially solve the above-mentioned problems of improving the resource control mechanism, notably to avoid conflict or underutilization of resources.